The Woman Warrior 669The theme of survival in the United States as
immigrants and as immigrants’ children is fore-
grounded in the last two chapters of The Woman
Warrior. The narrator’s mother, once a successful
midwife/doctor in China, must now make a living
running a family laundry business; in her old age she
works as a tomato picker even though she does not
need the pay. Those who are not able to adjust and
to work hard like Brave Orchid literally lose their
minds. For example, Brave Orchid’s younger and
less practical sister, Moon Orchid, who is brought
to California from Hong Kong by her determined
sister, becomes delusional and has to be committed
to a state mental asylum. Kingston’s narrator also
describes other “crazy” women of which the immi-
grant community seems to have had plenty. One of
them, Pee-A-Nah, was an angry witchwoman who
chased children as they picked berries in a slough.
There was also Crazy Mary who, left as a toddler
in China when her parents emigrated, was later
brought over as a disturbed 20-year-old; she was
not able to learn English and help her parents out as
had been hoped for. On the other hand, one could
risk overadjusting and losing one’s Chinese roots
completely as is seen in the case of Moon Orchid’s
husband, who has become extremely Americanized,
married to a young Chinese-American woman, and
practicing dentistry in a sleek office in downtown
Los Angeles. He sounds, looks, and even smells like
an American-born and proclaims his Chinese wife
is like a character in a story he read long ago. Immi-
grants’ children, including the narrator, must find
ways to survive without losing their connections to
their families’ past, to straddle two widely different
cultures and languages and their often conflicting
values.
Tomoko Kuribayashi
tradition in The Woman Warrior
Tradition is one of the main concerns of Kingston’s
memoir or autobiographical novel, which is narrated
from the viewpoint of a Chinese immigrant daugh-
ter growing up in northern California in the 1950s
and ’60s. The many first-generation immigrants that
surround the narrator, especially her mother, hope
to instill traditional Chinese values in the younger
generation, but are often disappointed at the rude-
ness and lack of formality found in the youth.
When the mother, Brave Orchid, laments that her
teenaged children are not “traditional” toward their
long-lost aunt, Moon Orchid, she means that they
are not polite, especially to their elders, since being
respectful to one’s social superiors is an essential
part of traditional Chinese culture. The American-
born children are also audacious in that they look
at people’s eyes directly whereas the correct way in
China is to have an unfocused gaze. Since the older
generation plans and hopes to return to China one
day, they think it important for the children not to
lose the traditional ways.
One major tool that the older generation uses to
communicate their beliefs and customs to their off-
spring is “talk-story,” that is, telling stories like the
one about a legendary female warrior, Fa Mu Lan,
or the more private one about an ill-starred aunt,
both of which the narrator hears from her mother.
Ghosts and food—both important Chinese tradi-
tions—are also featured frequently in the stories.
Even Chinese opera and songs may be considered
a kind of “talk-story,” a communal and musical way
of handing down traditional values and history. Yet
the American-born children are often confused as
to what is socially and culturally expected of them.
For one, the parents, who by Chinese custom tend
to be oblique in their statements or to state the exact
opposite of what they mean, do not clearly delineate
the guidelines for maintaining Chinese tradition.
To make matters worse, the younger generation
is often less than fluent in Chinese and does not
know the meaning of words their parents use in
their “talk-story,” and the parents do not bother to
explain each and every word, even when asked. The
first-generation immigrants also withhold some
information because they fear deportation and other
retaliation if their “secrets” are to be leaked through
their “American” children who do not know when to
remain silent.
Gender issues highlight the theme of tradition.
The young narrator suffers from much confusion
and fear because she is told that in China a woman
should be a slave and also be a woman warrior—two
seemingly contradictory roles. The narrator does not
want to be a slave or to accept the often vocalized
Chinese belief that women are innately inferior, and